The Learning Collaborative

The Learning Collaborative is a novel, public-private partnership devoted to accelerating and advancing new drug therapies with an emphasis on rare and neglected diseases. Each partner draws on its own unique strengths to speed up the process.

All three partners have extensive pharmaceutical experience, and KU’s IAMI brings national leadership in medicinal and pharmaceutical chemistry and product development-focused translational research. NCATS has a focus on rare and neglected diseases and industrial-scale medicinal chemistry and bioinformatics capability. And LLS has its own worldwide network of blood cancer experts and about 400 active research projects.

Achieving Success

The group, which formed in 2010, is already enjoying success. The group advanced an existing arthritis drug, Auranofin, for use in the fight against the most common type of leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). About 15,000 people in the United States receive a diagnosis of CLL each year.